


of dead people and the ghosts that follow them

by cptsuke



Series: Post 32 [2]
Category: The Losers (Comic), The Losers - All Media Types
Genre: Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-03-03
Updated: 2014-03-03
Packaged: 2018-01-14 07:56:44
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,516
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1258795
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/cptsuke/pseuds/cptsuke
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>They call her a dead woman. But it is only in this moment that she is truly alive. </p>
<p>Eighty four men stand between her and the coast when the bomb goes off. The fools stop to be horrified.</p>
            </blockquote>





	of dead people and the ghosts that follow them

They call her a dead woman. But it is only in this moment that she is truly alive.

Eighty four men stand between her and the coast when the bomb goes off. The fools stop to be horrified.

Eighty two.

The fight is nearing its end, whether the end is for them or she is something that has yet to be cast. From the way some have retreated - fled like the cowards they pretend not to be - perhaps they have already decide that she will be today's victor.

Aisha is fine if that is to be the outcome.

Eighty.

The explosion blinds her and the earth shakes beneath her feet. In her mind she feels twelve years old again, fire bombing russian tanks - lumbering soulless death machines - in the pitch black of night as shells shook the very earth.

She likes to think if there was a god she would say a prayer for Fahd. For both the memories and the sacrifice.

And punctuates it by slashing the closest man's throat.

Seventy nine.

His gun fires uselessly to the side of her and Aisha revels in the close contact. The knife slides easily through skin and muscle; blood and air gurgle pointlessly as he drops to the ground.

Aisha moves on. The bomb has created an excellent distraction. She would be a fool to ignore it.

Seventy eig - no wait - _seventy six_.

 

 

The lines she has sewn into her skin knit together with time; leaving jagged red paths across her body.

Aisha is not one of those silly vain women; worrying for a man's opinion. To her the scars map out both her past and her future. She displays them with pride and takes enjoyment in the way they shock soft _weak_ people.

 

 

Aisha should not be here. She has a list of CIA collaborators that only gets more and more obsolete the longer she leaves it. And yet she is in South America. A dead woman hunting dead men.

She is curious. A weakness to be sure, but a forgivable one in light of the recent past.

 

 

She had found Pooch. 'Hidden' in suburbia with only a flimsy name change to hide behind. She had watched them; it had taken until the end of the second day for the driver to feel that something was off. Aisha had watched him sort through boxes of discarded belongings, eventually coming up with a gun. If there was ever going to be proof that he is not a threat, that moment is it.

She watches for the rest of the week anyway. Curious to see whether Pooch actually know she is there, or is merely feeling watched.

 

 

She found Jensen's sister in a park. A woman he never spoke about in front of her. Aisha watches her and her child as they go about _playing_.

Within twenty minutes the woman's head snaps up and looks unerringly at her. Aisha sees in that moment that under the smiles and laughter lies a woman who has know both violence and great sadness.

Aisha smiles across the grass. Pretends she is merely another park goer. Enjoying the green. She has no quarrel with this woman. Her brother has contacted her just once in the previous eight months. Aisha wonders if he merely wants nothing to do with her, or if he is smart enough to know that she is protected by his absence.

She does not stay for long - the sister may not have made her but there is a chance she may yet - and the children make Aisha uneasy. If she were to ever bear children she would never let them grow up so naive of the dangers and injustices in the world.

 

 

Her shoulder is aching again when she steps into the warm caribbean air. Of all her wounds this is the one that aches like a reminder. Perhaps it is a sign that she should be back in her homeland. Fighting the good fight.

Aisha was never very good at following signs. Her path is her own and no direction will sway her until she is prepared to be swayed.

She finds the last member of their once merry group in a bar. Pooch and the CIA man have left and he is alone. He looks worn down and tired. She is not surprised but he does not drink as much as she might have thought he would.

 

 

Later she follows him to his motel room, not entirely sure why it this one she has decided to follow more closely. He stumbles slightly into the door, forehead pushing against the wood. As if prayer might force alcohol contaminated fingers to operate the lock on the door.

He straightens and, in a move that eerily mirrors his sister's several months and many thousands of miles apart, turns to look at her.

Up close Aisha is struck by the sudden realisation that she is looking at a dead man. He breathes air and blood still pumps through his veins but there is something that rots him from the inside. Aisha has seen this look on the faces of men, their insides coming out. Knowing the end has come but still stubbornly refusing to let go of life.

She has put this face on many men.

She thinks perhaps she has come to put the boy out of his misery.

He turns again, his back shadowed with sharp angles, and finally gets the door opened. He walks through and leaves it open behind him. An invite.

 

 

"Are you here to kill me?" He leans back, sprawling across a thin legged chair. She sits upon the chair across from his and touches the bottle he has set down for her. She does not think she will drink this. He has taken two out for himself, which seems to be positive thinking for a man who thinks he will soon die.

Aisha _had_ thought of killing him. Killing them all. It would have been _tidier_. She knows she would have killed them if they had accepted the company man's offer. Would have cut them down before any of them knew what hit them.

"You were the hardest to find." She says instead, the bottle cap burns her skin as she twists and unscrews it. "I did not expect that."

Once he had reminded her of a little brother she might have once had. Kind with soft hands. He had stepped on a mine and was no more.

Kindness did you no favours in this world. This is a lesson that Aisha suspects Jensen has learnt well.

He takes a long swallow of his beer. Fingers pick at the label, rubbing the condensation droplets into the paper.

"Bet you were surprised to find me alive at all." Once he might have said that with a grin and a laugh. Now it is merely a statement of fact - Aisha did not think much of him, therefore would be surprised at his survival.

"I did not expect to find you alone." She says it and thinks that maybe it is a sucker punch. But he just smiles, though it is not the smile he once had.

"Was not the plan, lady." He leans forward, elbows pushing into the cheap wooden grain of the table top. He drops his eyes to the third beer bottle and Aisha notices the way it's set to the side. As if waiting for another to take a seat.

_Rotted to the core._ She thinks.

"He was a good man. A hard man." She actually feels a little sadness at Cougar's death. Of them all, Cougar was probably the one she would have stood the greatest chance of becoming friends with. The man had understood that pain and loss forged a person, hardened them into tough steel or brittle iron.

"Yeah, he was. But he was a lotta other things too." He frowns, glasses riding up his nose as he scrunches up his face. It is the first negative emotion she has seen from him tonight. "You can't just wrap a man's life into 'good' and 'hard'. Jesus-fucking-Christ, lady, there is so fucking much more. If you'd had a fucking heart you'd fucking know that."

"Those are the things that matter." She says flatly. She did not come here to listen to this man _talk_. "If you have learnt nothing else, you must have learnt that."

"Jeeesus." He breathes the word out, as if the length of it could make an unbeliever more believable. "You're a little like a shark, lady."

A grin - hard and sharp - pulls at his lips.

It is an apt description, Aisha thinks, returning that sharp grin.

He smiles then. A proper smile, if a little sad. Like something has been said that Aisha did not hear. She stands. She is done here. This place is for dead men and the ghosts that haunt them.

He raises his hand as she leaves, the skin pulling tight over white knuckles, and forms it into a pretend gun.

_Bang_ he mouths, that sad smile still sitting heavily on his face. 


End file.
